What Tech CEOs ‘Like’ About Zuckerberg

Facebook's CEO has provided numerous lessons to startup leaders

Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned 28 this week, and what better way to celebrate then with one of the biggest IPOs in history?

Yes, it seems like Zuckerberg has led a charmed life — but it was skill, not luck, that has gotten him this far. For such a young leader, he has made some critical decisions along the way, and shown a number of qualities other startup leaders should have.

I recently talked to a variety of tech CEOs, who shared their stories about the lessons they’ve learned from Zuckerberg:

“I’ve been incredibly impressed with Mark Zuckerberg’s vision since Facebook’s early days. He saw something that no one else saw and he built it. But it’s not just about vision, it’s about execution. Mark proved that he could execute on his vision to create an amazing product and engaging user experience. He’s pioneered a product and platform that no one else could have achieved in a very short period of time.

I think a lot of people doubted Mark’s vision early on because he was young, but he proved the critics wrong. Despite scrutiny by the press, a movie about his company, and critique from the financial community surrounding the IPO, he’s done a phenomenal job of focusing on what he does best. He’s made very few missteps on a quick path to building a $100 billion company and he’s done so by hiring smart and capable people around him to handle other tasks. We’ve seen this in the IPO process, where Sheryl Sandberg and other high-level executives have owned their areas of expertise while Mark continues to focus on the vision for Facebook.

“I think Mark is on the path to becoming the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates in the way he will change the world with Facebook. Facebook has changed countless lives by making the world a closer, more connected place — and they’re just getting started. Given Mark’s vision and ability to execute over the last eight years, I’m truly excited for what lies ahead. I’m in Facebook’s office almost every week, and I’m continuously blown away by the company’s speed of innovation and long-term vision for the future. BranchOut is proud to be one of the largest Facebook apps and we’re looking forward to a long future with Facebook as our key partner.”

“While a lot of CEOs let their egos get in the way of making the right decisions for the company, Mark Zuckerberg has been objective and able to brush off what the public thinks about him. He has also been smart and lucky about who he has chosen to surround himself with, like Sean Parker, Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen.”

“Hiring Sheryl Sandberg and David Ebersman were smart moves on Mark’s part. It shows he knows what his strengths are and what they’re not.

“Mark also invested in creating and fostering a vibrant developer ecosystem with a rich set of APIs. This has allowed Facebook to get better for users and brands while alleviating some of the pressure to innovate from Facebook.

“Finally, one of the hardest things to do as a creator is to know when something isn’t working and when to pull the plug. Facebook has done this on numerous occasions, like it did with Facebook Places.”

“Lost in the conversation about what Mark Zuckerberg wore on the road show is the fact that he has proven himself a very competent manager and CEO. He can be incredibly strategic and his patience in monetizing Facebook is probably the best example of this. He has a deep understanding of the details of the business. While this is often derided as micromanagement, two notorious “micromanagers” like Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Steve Jobs and Microsoft‘s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bill Gates, seem to have done well enough.

“And Zuckerberg learns from experience. By every account of him, he is a sponge for information and you can see him quickly learn from misfires (e.g., the privacy policy). What might make him even more valuable as a manager is that he has few of the bad habits of the suited managers who want him to conform. He is passionate and direct. Take, for example, his past approach to board meetings. He simply used notes on a yellow notepad to articulate what the company was up to. Direct, conversational, and easy to understand.”

“I most admire Zuckerberg for his tremendous leadership. This is a man who now owns two board seats and negotiated the deal with Instagram on his own accord. Even in the midst of events such as GM cancelling their advertising campaign, Zuckerberg is not going to break a sweat over it. Why? Because he sees the bigger picture. He is not what I would describe as a vocal leader, rather, he leads by example. His employees respect and ultimately have confidence in his decisions because they recognize he had the insight to create a concept with a ‘stickiness factor’: he understood that its human nature to want to be part of a larger social network — and now he is going to make the appropriate leadership decisions to monetize it.”

Based in Silicon Valley, Tom Taulli is in the heart of IPO land. On a regular basis, he talks with many of the top tech CEOs and founders trying to find the next hot deals and finding out which start-ups are stinkers.

A long-time follower of the IPO scene, back in 1999 Tom started one of the first sites in the space called WebIPO. It was a place where investors got research as well as access to deals for the dot-com boom. Tom also wrote the top-selling book, Investing in IPOs. In it, he covers all the aspects of analyzing an IPO, such as reading the prospectus, detecting the risk factors and understanding some of the arcane regulations. But don’t worry — if that process is too intimidating for you, thankfully Tom will do the legwork for you right here in the IPO Playbook blog.

Tom is routinely quoted in the media about upcoming deals with his interviews on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, but he is eager to take your questions too. You can message him on Twitter at @ttaulli. And feel free to weigh in via the comments section on any of his IPO Playbook posts.